


For Wilred

by sandorara



Series: The Dumpling Chronicles [3]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Gen, canon character death, identity crisis, spoilers for 2.55, welcome to dumpling's head, what is this it doesnt even have a ship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-05
Updated: 2018-08-05
Packaged: 2019-06-22 04:23:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15573687
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sandorara/pseuds/sandorara
Summary: They were both born after the invasion, outside of Ala Mhigo.A short introspective piece about G'yozah's relationship to his roots and how Wilred played into that.





	For Wilred

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers up to patch 2.55. Mentions of MNK and RDM job quest characters.

In a way, G'yozah has been almost jealous of Wilred after that mission to Little Ala Mhigo. Wilred had been given roots, a culture and identity that belonged to his family and his ancestors, that he cared about so much that he would go to such lengths for it. SO far as to even try summoning a primal. He had been told all about their homeland growing up, that lost nation now behind walls. Told that one day they'd reclaim it, told about traditions, values, memories that needed to be kept alive even when life was a struggle. So that one day they could bring it all back there, and the children born after the occupation would feel just as at home as their parents who fled. Wilred was Ala Mhigan.

G'yozah had none of that. He knew his family had come from Ala Mhigo, that they had fled like everyone else. But he didn't really know anything about that mysterious country behind the massive Imperial wall, nothing about any traditions of its people --of what could have been _his_ people. He didn't know which of his family's traditions where just theirs, or whether any of them were actually _Ala Mhigan_. He barely knew about this guardian, Rhalgr, who Wilred had put so much hope in. But, he'd never known what he was missing either.

What he did have was a safe home, a good life with few struggles. An inn doing good business, where he grew up helping his mother, sisters and aunts out. He'd never had to worry about having food, no one had ever, as far as he knew, looked down on him for who he was or where his roots laid. He'd never had to fight for his right to exist, never had to feel the pain of missing a place he'd never been to. He had safety, comfort, _privilege_.

Wilred had none of that.

They were about the same age, G'yozah figured. They had lived the same years, the same Calamity. Yet it seemed to him like their lives were night and day.

He'd thought nothing of it, when the Scions had sent him to Little Ala Mhigo. Why would he have? Ala Mhigo was no more than a name of a place to him. But even having seen all the refugee camps around Ul'dah, having seen the way those people lived and how they were treated, he'd never really made the connection. What met him in Little Ala Mhigo changed that. For the first time in his life, Ala Mhigo became a real place. A place all these people loved and longed for more than anything.

And with that came so much hostility, anger and bitterness. He wasn't there to connect with the people, yet that ended up being all he wanted to do. But the judgement and wariness of the refugees had made him feel cold, confused and so very small. Guilty.

" _As an outsider, what could you understand?_ ," they'd asked, and he'd bit his lip, because they were right as much as they were wrong.

He'd felt so much guilt. That he wasn't as much of an outsider as they thought, yet he really did not understand. He'd never had to understand.

It had felt easier to just be regarded as that outsider. He was one, after all.

But-- he wondered where he would have been if his side of the tribe had not been wealthy and high enough in Ala Mhigan society to be able to start anew anywhere. If they hadn't had the resources to hide and forget, to remove the veil of refuge and simply be migrants. Would he have been just like Wilred? Would he have rallied alongside him? Would they have been friends? Would another adventurer have come to investigate the both of them?

What life would Wilred have had if he'd been brought up under similar circumstances as G'yozah? Would he still care about his roots so much, without the bitterness and anger that fuelled it?

And what would both their lives have been like, had the Garleans never invaded?

Those early days in Southern Thanalan sowed more seeds inside G'yozah than he would ever have expected. More thoughts that travelled along with him, brewed in his mind and sometimes made themselves known. Interest he'd never had before. Curiosity. A desire to find out and learn, to familiarise himself with what Ala Mhigo was, what it had been and what it symbolised. At times he wondered if he would ask his mother if he visited home, but somehow that didn't feel right. He wanted this discovery to be his own journey. As much as this whole adventuring business was his own.

Even as he met and befriended more people with Ala Mhigan roots, those days in Little Ala Mhigo lingered. Widargelt's passion was different, yet he was as dedicated to the liberation of his homeland. Unlike Wilred, he had seen it, lived there, _lost it_. He placed his motivation into the survival of the Fist of Rhalgr. His stories were wishful and idealistic, nostalgic even.

And then there was X'rhun.

Just like Widargelt, he was keeping something Ala Mhigan alive as he travelled, helping people and aiding the Ala Mhigan resistance in his own ways. And X'rhun was the first he dared to ask. To tell him about Ala Mhigo. He'd received stories of a country in need of saving already long before it was lost. A side of the place he'd not heard much of before. An honesty that maybe few Ala Mhigans wanted to give. Maybe it was easier to only remember the positive.

But for all X'rhun's claims to be a hopeless idealist, his words had been among the first to give G'yozah some realism. And they had painted a more vivid picture in G'yozah's mind than any had before. They'd sparked a more genuine interest in exploring the small seeds of an Ala Mhigan identity within him.

Not long after that, he recruited Wilred to what was meant to become a Grand Company for all of Eorzea. Maybe Wilred had also hoped that one day that would again encompass Ala Mhigo as well. Serving Eorzea was serving a future free Ala Mhigo. He'd said G'yozah had inspired him, and G'yozah had grinned, genuinely flattered, but never mentioned any of what Wilred had set off inside of him. None of the questions, the complicated feelings or the dreams of one day seeing it all.

And through another recruit, Ilberd, he learned that even the most dedicated and passionate Ala Mhigans came in all flavours. That even people who wanted nothing more in the world than their homeland liberated need not be so different from the ones who gave it up in the first place. Not when coin and power were involved.

And even though Wilred would never get to see the land of his dreams, though he never would return to the home he longed for; though by the time G'yozah crossed the wall by the East Shroud his body had long since rested in the ground, still garbed in the blue of the Crystal Braves; though his bravery had cost him his life, he had changed G'yozah forever.

Though there were many others alongside him. Though G'yozah still didn't speak of his heritage. Though he still had so many questions...

He knew that one day, when given the chance, he would stand up and fight for the freedom of Ala Mhigo. Not only for himself, or for Widargelt, or X'rhun or _anyone_.

But for Wilred.


End file.
